The collapse of the front undercarriage on a Southwest Airlines flight as it touched down at New York’s LaGuardia Airport injured eight passengers yesterday.

Southwest said 150 people (144 passengers and six crew) were on Flight 345 from Nashville, Tennessee.

The Boeing 737-700’s nose gear collapsed shortly after it landed and the aircraft skidded down the runway on its nose and then veered off and came to rest in a grassy area. Later reports said three crew were among the eight hurt.

“It was just a bang and a bounce and then just a slam on the brakes and then it was a skidding feeling,” passenger Kathy Boles told CNN.

“You could tell they were trying to stop the plane,” “It was very clear as soon as we went down that something was really wrong.”

A witness on the ground said he saw sparks flying from the front of the plane as it skidded nose-down along the runway.

The airport closed temporarily.

The incident is the third accident involving a commercial airliner and a runway in the past month. An Asiana B777 crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport on 6 July, killing three passengers, and six days later, an empty B787 Dreamliner owned by Ethiopian Airlines caught on fire on the runway at London Heathrow.

The Southwest mishap has little in common with the highly publicised Asiana B777 crash, other than that both aircraft were made by Boeing, both accidents happened on landing and passengers received no warning in either case.

US aviation safety authorities, Southwest and Boeing are investigating the latest incident.